Last Wednesday saw another deadly terrorist attack in China, this time in the far-western province of Xinjiang.
In what’s believed to have been a suicide attack, two bombers detonated explosives at a train station in Urumqi, the province’s capital, killing one person and injuring seventy-nine. The blast coincided with the visit of China’s President, Xi Jinping, to the province and follows the mass knifing attack in March at Kunming train station in China’s south, which left twenty-nine dead. It also follows a suicide attack on Tiananmen Square last October, in which a jeep packed with explosives ploughed into tourists killing five and injuring thirty-eight.
Xinjiang authorities are yet to identify a particular group for Wednesday’s attack, saying only that it was the work of religious extremists but Beijing has made no secret in the past it blames such recent violence on separatists from the mainly Muslim Uyghur minority.
So who are the Uyghurs? Could extremist Uyghur groups be behind such attacks and if so, what are they trying to achieve?
Dr Michael Clarke from the Griffith Asia Institute was interviewed about the attacks, and Uyghur minority, for 2ser radio.